


easy under the apple boughs

by fernic



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: (so yes this means Thorin dies), M/M, this follows canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 23:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14271789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fernic/pseuds/fernic
Summary: It was the small things first. That’s how things always tend to be.





	easy under the apple boughs

**Author's Note:**

> this is more of a character study than it is an actual piece of writing that follows any sort of coherent thought. this can be read as romantic. it doesn't _have_ to be, but it _can be_. interpret it as you please!  
>  this is also my first Tolkien inspired work. I'm currently reading lotr and am loving every word.
> 
> also, note that this kind of jumps around a lot. Some follows canon and some has been completely made up by yours truly. The narration is not all that linear. Switching between past and present tenses was done on purpose.

It was the small things first.

Before the fire and the trees. Before the Ring and the deep, dark pit growing in his stomach, starved and gnawing on his bones. Before everything became real, when he was still clinging to the threads of the idea of adventure, of the childish fantasy that had always stuck in the back of his mind.

Bilbo was cold. Everyone was cold. It had been weeks, though not so many. It was like an extended vacation, the destination known still fairly new to his simple mind. His pockets were empty and his red coat was torn under the sleeve, cold air seeping in right near his armpit. He had never been so thoroughly frozen in his entire life. He said this to Gandalf, who just chuckled and told him to lay closer to the fire, and so he listened and he did.

Only one of the dwarves was snoring. Gloin, or maybe Dwalin. It was hard to see in the dark, and Bilbo never was as good with names as he lay claim to be. The point was that he was right beside Bilbo, and his rumbles seemed to shake the very earth, and Bilbo had no choice but to scoot farther away, huddled next to a rock still slightly warm from the sun. His teeth started to chatter and he was half tempted to throw himself into the embers if it meant that he could finally be warm enough. Or maybe he could just smash his head against the rock and end it there. He shifted again, and again until he was clenching dying grass between his fingers because his hands had curled into frozen fists. Then there was a grunt, and something heavy was tossed haphazardly onto his back.

Bilbo jumped, because of course, he did, and then stopped when his fingers, numb and losing feeling, suddenly sank into fur, soft and warm. The pelt was big and covered his whole body and then some, and when Bilbo sat up, Thorin was twisting around so that he could only see his back.

“Thank you,” Bilbo said.

“I don’t want to bury a hobbit,” was Thorin’s reply. “At least not until you get me what I want.”

“Well— yes, alright,” Bilbo said, and that was that.

*

The fire was hot. That is the first thing Bilbo remembers because it was so different than that night weeks before, and so much had changed since then, but still, what he knows now is not what he knew then, and what he does now is not what he could have ever pictured himself doing back then.

He thought he would die.

He was positive that he was going to die.

It was very, very hot.

And everything was fast. That was how battles were. People in stories like to slow them down, like to get all the gritty details in there. Bilbo should know. He was one of those people. He still is one of those people. But back then, right when he realized that the flimsy idea of adventure he clung to was not what he was going to get, it was a surprise, how fast each battle went on. How he sometimes thought he was the only one left. How each time his sword sank into Orc flesh he wondered if it would feel the same way to the person that killed him. Slow. Dense. Meaty. Warm blood bubbling up from wounds and warming his cold fingers.

It was hot. That kept coming back to him, even then. Fire is very different in a brick alcove than it is spreading around the trees, right under your feet and growing like some sort of fungus. And he was hanging on to a tree bound to fall, and Thorin was on the ground, steel pressed above his neck, like some twisted necklace, and he didn’t think.

He just jumped.

And he stabbed.

Sank his sword into its chest— it, it had become an it, a simple thing now gone— and felt the racing of his heart in his thighs and stomach and arms. Watched the life seep from its eyes and found he didn’t feel one ounce of regret or horror in his body, just fast adrenaline that made him feel woozy.

They always made the battle seem like minutes and the killings seem like hours. It was a second. A second of driving his blade into the Orc’s heart and another second of stumbling off of him and facing Azog and realizing he was going to die for a Dwarf who only offered him his coat, and wasn’t that a sad story?

He didn’t die. Of course, he didn’t. The Dwarves came, and then the Eagles, and Bilbo was relieved, but at the same time not. Because he had come so close to the end, and they were just at the beginning. And if that was just the beginning, then how would it end? It was supposed to be easy up until the last bit. That’s how it was in all the storybooks and fables. It was supposed to be riddles and hidden doorways and hiding in woods and riding ponies, not watching giant trees smolder and realizing you might sink with the ash.

He clung to the feathers of the eagle’s back and soared high into the sky and thought that he always wondered what it would be like to fly, to feel big for once in his small life, but now that he was up there, he only felt nauseous and dizzy. He looked down and saw Thorin, unconscious in the claws of another eagle. Bilbo wondered for the briefest moment if he was dead. He didn’t want him to be— of course, he didn’t, he’d almost died for him— but a part of him couldn’t help but play with the idea a little. He had slept with his coat only a few weeks before. He had been insulted by him many times before and after that fact, but still.

Bilbo found he really didn’t want Thorin to be dead.

He wasn’t dead.

“The Halfling,” Thorin said, right after Gandalf did whatever magic he did. Or maybe it wasn’t magic at all, maybe Thorin would have opened his eyes regardless if Gandalf had been kneeling over him or not. Bilbo would never know. All he knew was that something struck his heart when Thorin called upon him first, and he had thought it was fear. Anticipation. Now he wasn’t so sure, but like he said before, now he knew more than he did then.

When Thorin hugged him, the first thing Bilbo felt was the softness of the pelt against his cheek, and how much warmer it was on somebody than just thrown on them. He didn’t think he would ever be able to stand the heat of fire again, but this was different. This was nice. This was what he could get used to, what he found himself wanting for a while but only having just realized now.

He found himself— before Thorin had even pulled away— thinking of when it was going to happen again.

He promised he’d help them claim their home. He would do that. He’d sworn it. Then, he would hug each and every dwarf. He’d even reach up and try to wrap his arms around Gandalf. He’d cling to Thorin for a moment longer than the rest, because it felt nice, and because Bilbo was getting used to the idea of standing up and taking what he wanted for the first time in his life. Because it would be cold, and Thorin would be warm, and that seemed like enough.

*

He almost gave it to him.

Almost.

He did not know what held him back. He could see the greed devouring him, the paranoia making him delirious. Obsessed with betrayal. Obsessed with war. Obsessed with everything that wasn’t Bilbo or the Company or anything else that wasn’t his to claim by birthright. 

Bilbo showed him the acorn and for an instant, the world righted itself. Thorin smiled and Bilbo felt a confession on the tip of his tongue, and just as fast as it arrived it was thrust back into his mouth and down into the pit of his stomach when Dwalin gave the news of the men in Dale. 

He almost gave it to him. 

He thinks he would have if Thorin had asked. If he had run fingers down Bilbo’s arm and stared at him like he sometimes did and maybe even said please.

He thinks some of what happened next would not have happened if he did. He thinks that he cannot know that for sure, and stops thinking about it at all.

(He almost gave it to him. He wanted to give it to him. He thought it would make him happy.)

(He so desperately wanted him to be happy.)

*

There was more. Of course, sometimes there was more.

The small things became larger things. He goes back, farther into his memories. After the coat on that cold night, a little after the hug on the hot eve. He pressed an acorn into his pocket. He pressed the Ring into that same pocket sometime later. He felt Thorin’s hand on his shoulder more times than he could count. He felt eyes pierce him, stares so long the hair on the back of his neck tickled. 

There was one point where Thorin dropped a small cube of soap into the palm of his hand and told him to make sure he cleaned out the dirt behind is ears.

“We need you to hear,” he said, standing too close even though there was plenty of room to stand farther away. Even though the matter of what he should and should not wash wasn’t really important enough to be the matter of a private, quiet discussion. “I need you to be ready.”

“I am ready,” Bilbo said back, though he wasn’t sure for what.

Thorin stared at him like he always did, and closed Bilbo’s fingers around the cube of soap. “The skinchanger has set up a tub, in the last stall of the barn. Kili has claimed it next. Go, Master Baggins.”

Bilbo wished he would say his name. He wished he was something other than Burglar, or Master Baggins, or Halfling. He was Bilbo to Gandalf and the rest of the Company. Why wasn’t he Bilbo to Thorin?

He washed behind his ears. He closed his eyes and sank into the warm water and said, “My name is Bilbo,” all to himself, and the Ox across from him snorted, and he sank his whole head into the water with embarrassment.

Kili groaned at him that he used up all the soap. Bilbo looked across the barn and saw Thorin smile and offered him a chunk of bread and said, “I like you clean, Halfling. Dirt is meant for dwarves and men. Beauty is meant for elves.”

“And what of Hobbits?” Bilbo asked stupidly. “What’re we meant for?”

Thorin shrugged. “You are not at all ugly, though you are only one Hobbit amongst what must be many, so I do not think I can answer your question.”

Not at all ugly. Huh. Bilbo rolled his eyes and ripped off the burnt crust of the bread, the inside dough soft as a cloud and practically melting on his tongue. “You be sure to tell me once you figure it out, then.”

“My burglar, my friend,” Thorin laughed, and the words put a sudden jolt in Bilbo’s stomach. “You will be the first to know.”

*

  
He dreamed of the future.

He wanted them to come back to the Shire with him.

Nor forever. No. They had a home now. They just opened the gates. And Bilbo was walking down to the treasury. He skipped a few times. And the daydreamed. The halls were dark and creepy and damp but his mind was clear and bright.

In it, he saw his home, Bag End, waiting for him, round door open and warm, garden green and taken care of. He saw the Dwarves in his kitchen, emptying out his pantry for him. He saw Gandalf smoking his pipe outside. He saw Thorin looking at his trees and flowers and plants and everything and saying, “Beautiful, Bilbo.”

Bilbo wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

He had never had friends. Well, he had, but not the types he had now. Not the sort that he would die for. Not the sort that circled around him in the midst of a fight. Not the sort that pressed cloth to his bleeding cuts, who shouted at him to watch out, who kept him from dying from an Orc blade stuck right in his stomach. It was normal, to love the people like that. To understand how special they were. To know that they all might die and if they did it would completely wreck you until you thought that a thousand arrows in your back would hurt so much less.

But maybe it wasn’t normal when he sometimes set his sleeping wrap down on the ground next to Thorin simply because he liked being close to him. Maybe fantasizing of romanticised battle scenes where it was him and Thorin back to back in battle was wrong, and unhealthy, and also weird because Bilbo knew what it was like to be in the middle of a fight and he should’ve wanted to avoid it at all costs.

The adventure did odd, terrible things. It also did wondrous, magical things. Bilbo wasn’t sure what Thorin was to him. Strange or captivating. Arrogant or Prideful. Someone for Bilbo to stand beside, or someone for him to hold onto with all of his life.

*

They were walking through the Mirkwood Forest, minds muddled and misty, movements sluggish and robotic, when Thorin placed his hand on Bilbo’s hip.

Bilbo stopped. They all did. Bilbo had somehow managed to walk his way to the front. Or maybe he always was in the front, and he just noticed now. Or maybe they all had waited for him to pass them. The point was that he was beside Thorin, and a big hand and thick fingers wrapped around his hip, pressing into bone, and a sudden awareness spun down Bilbo’s entire body, like a trickle of water down his spine. In front of him was a rather steep ditch.

“You’d’ve fallen,” Thorin grunted.

Bilbo nodded. Something flashed in Thorin’s face. He looked older, in this light. Except there was no light, and Bilbo didn’t know how he could see at all. Thorin still gripped his hip. Bilbo was very reluctant to tell him to move away. The other dwarves of the Company started to shift around them and then just walked straight past the two of them.

“I don’t feel well,” Bilbo said honestly.

“We’re going to get lost,” Thorin replied.

“Okay… I still don’t feel well,” Bilbo said, toes curling into the damp soil of the forest ground. His hip burned. Thorin released him and looked past to the departing backs of the dwarves.

“My thief, you will be alright. You will survive,” Thorin said, and he sounded the most awake than ever.

He was right. Bilbo did survive. He also did monstrous things for a monstrous Ring. He felt a heavy, dark pull in his chest and wished more than anything to instead feel the steadiness of Thorin’s hand curled around his hip. Just that would have been enough, he had thought, to pull him out of the wicked spell he now found himself under.

*

He would lose too much time if he were to go into detail about everything.

So he doesn’t.

The end is the best part. That’s what he always was taught. That’s how it always happened in the books and fairytales. The end is when everything turned out right. The end is when you closed the leather bound cover and smile and say, well that was nice, and reach over to the shelf to start another one.

Bilbo’s end was wrong. Maybe not now, but it was then. Then, he didn’t know when the end was going to be. He didn’t know if his end would be due to a peaceful sleep or a sharp sword or even a long, unfortunate tumble down a mountain. The end he has now is a newfound home in Rivendell, freedom from the Ring, the slow, rising guilt of thrusting the weight of it unto Frodo, and a mindful of memories to go back to.

A whole world in his head full of possible endings, some more painful than others, some more satisfying than others. Parts of him wish it ended with the trolls, or the night of the fire, or hell, maybe even dying of the cold on that early night would have been preferable to what he has now. But then he thinks no, that what he has is what he wants, even though it is not with who he originally wanted it with.

*

His ending was this:

There was a body on the ice. Bilbo was reminded of that night in the beginning, and he ached to bring it up, to ask why. He was so cold, and the blood seeping from the open gash that ripped Thorin’s skin was so warm, and Thorin was so warm, still warm, and Bilbo clung to his words like he clung to the coat on that night. Like it was life. Like it was all he had.

 _Plant your trees, watch them grow_ , Thorin said, and then some more. Bilbo did not want to listen. Listening made it true, made it real. He longed to shut his ears and lay his head on Thorin’s chest just to listen to the last beats of his heart. The blood was warm and sticky in the webs between his fingers. He wanted to sink his fingers into the wet, open flesh and rip Thorin apart because how dare he. How dare he go off and die when he had only just arrived. How dare he leave Bilbo where it was cold, where things were only just beginning to make sense, where words were now all he had left, that and a cooling corpse right underneath his hands, the hard ice beneath his knees. The blood no longer felt warm. It felt dead. It felt consuming. It felt like nothing underneath his hands.

This was not what he wanted. This was not how it was supposed to end.

“Please, no,” Bilbo croaked. He was weak. He was not meant to endure pain like this. He whispered into Thorin’s ear promises of tomorrow and looked at the sky and understood that things would never be the same, and that battles were fast but death was not, and that nothing, not even a storybook, would ever change that.

*

His ending was this:

“He was my…” he could not finish that sentence. Perhaps it was because he was scared. Perhaps it was because he did not know himself who, exactly Thorin was to him. Or when he became something to him. A friend, yes, but something more.

War is a petty thing. It promises so much and gives so little. It brings an end to evil but that evil is not so clear-cut, and everyone loses, in the end. Everyone buries someone and the earth sings and cries, for she has grown bigger, fuller, lusher, but still is empty.

 _Friend_ , he said to the other hobbits. _Conrad._

 _Leader_ , he said to the other dwarves when they finally visited, exactly one year after the start of the whole adventure.

 _Possibility_ , he said to Gandalf, maybe fifteen years after everything.

 _Something unknown_ , he wrote to Frodo. _The ending I was rooting for._

*

His ending is this:

He planted his trees. He let them grow. He felt the weight in his pocket grow heavier every day.

It was the small things first. That’s how things always tend to be.

He let go. Of the Ring. Of the Shire. Of Frodo. Of everything that he had fought so hard for. Maybe that wasn’t what he was fighting for. Or maybe it was, but now it isn’t. There was something dark growing inside of him, and Bilbo knew too much about sickness. In forests. In friends.

He is fine, now. He smokes his pipe and escapes into the gardens at night. He planted an acorn tree. The elves said it was alright. It will not begin to grow until long after he is dead. He finds joy in that. It would be too painful, he thinks, to sit beneath it now.

So he lays underneath the open sky. He feels the steady earth beneath his head and thinks of how different it is from cold, chilling ice, and he clings to that passing thought, like a leaf floating around the Riverbend, and for an instant feels very young and wise once again. There is a soft wind against his cheek, pressing gently into his flesh, so very different from the chill of a blade, not unlike the softness of fur, and thinks that it could mean something, if only he were to let it.

Bilbo closes his eyes.

He lets it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is derived from one of my favorite poems, [Fern Hill](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/fern-hill), by Dylan Thomas. This is the stanza it was taken from:
> 
> _Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs_  
>  _About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,_  
>  _The night above the dingle starry,_  
>  _Time let me hail and climb_  
>  _Golden in the heydays of his eyes,_  
>  _And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns_  
>  _And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves_  
>  _Trail with daisies and barley_  
>  _Down the rivers of the windfall light._


End file.
